Tag Archives for " Business Strategy "

A 12-Step Program for the Recovering Sales-Hater

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

There are quite a few professions that have a complete aversion to the idea of selling.

Accountants, bankers, engineers, doctors – they generally don’t want to sell. They certainly don’t want to be called salespeople. In fact, they don’t even want their names in the same sentence with the word “selling.”

Let’s just call them what they are: Sales-Haters.

Unfortunately, in the very next breath these same professionals want to know how they can increase business, survive the economy, defeat the competition, and win more projects.

Seriously?

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Sales Without Service is Killing You

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

It seems that people perpetually complain that the economy is bad. So, why do restaurants treat their customers so poorly? Wouldn’t it stand to reason that every customer is critical in a bad economy? Heck, aren’t they critical in a good economy? In fact, isn’t creating an outstanding dining experience THE foremost objective with regard to bringing customers back in? Which means that a sales department that is not supported by great customer service is almost certainly doomed to fail.

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Regarding Your (Gross) Margins

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

One of the most significant challenges that confront sales management is the salesperson that insists on cutting prices to gain business. Although salespeople have no shortage of excuses for taking a little off the top, it is my experience that this pervasive problem is almost always a sign of poor or undeveloped selling skills. To be clear, there are times when companies or salespeople should choose – strategically – to lower a price and, as a result, accept a smaller margin. But, while there can be good, rational reasons for cutting your price, the much more common scenario is that salespeople simply use a lower price to close a deal because they lack the skills to present and negotiate value.

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Your ‘Salespeople’ Are Losing Your Customers

By Kelly Riggs | Sales + Leadership

Some of your salespeople are guilty of losing customers because they’ve not been taught critical selling skills. And I’m not talking about the salespeople who go out in the field and actually sell your products or services. I’m talking about all of the other “salespeople” in the building.

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